NEC Energy Solutions (NEC) announced today that they have introduced a DC-coupled energy storage solution for solar adding to their existing AC-coupled solution to leverage the rapidly expanding solar+storage market. NEC’s DC-coupled and AC-coupled solutions combined with the company’s proprietary AEROS® controls system allow for seamless integration of new and retrofit PV systems. Both options for adding energy storage to solar are available on NEC’s GSS® grid energy storage platform.
NEC’s new DC-coupled solution for solar is scalable for applications up to hundreds of megawatts in 500kW increments and durations ranging from 1 to over 4 hours. The proven benefits of DC-coupled energy storage for solar are numerous including:
- Lower overall equipment costs – allows for the sharing of inverters, transformers and switchgear across PV and storage.
- Lower operating costs – improves round trip efficiency and cuts energy losses compared to AC-coupled architectures by up to a third.
- Interconnect maximization – uses more of interconnection ‘bandwidth’ by shifting some PV output to a different time of day.
- Easier to ensure Solar ITC eligibility – DC coupled architectures ensure charging of storage from PV only.
“The addition of storage is one of the most exciting trends in solar today, to help shift solar power to more important times of day, enable better interconnection utilization with applications like clipping recapture, smooth and shape solar power output, or prevent curtailed solar energy from being lost forever. In keeping with our commitment to increase the value of our customers’ power, NEC is increasing the value of solar with our scalable, flexible DC-coupled offering,” said Roger Lin, VP of Marketing at NEC Energy Solutions. ”With the addition of our new DC-coupled solution, we now have a complete set of storage solution options for solar systems with the myriad of benefits DC-coupling offers, in addition to our existing AC-coupled product.”
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